I kept mulling over david's post about his 1938 department store withanodized
aluminum windows and decided to check out the Bible, i.e., "Twentieth Century
Building Materials: History and Conservation," edited by Thomas Jester.

I discovered that aluminum as a building material was used much earlier than
I had realized. The metal was first successfully isolated from alum by Hans
Christian Oersted (U. of Copenhagen) in 1825 (!)

The first recorded architectural application of the metal was the aluminum
cap cast for the Washington monument in 1884. Other early uses included 3
Chicago buildings: the Venetian (1892, Holabird and Roche), Isabella (1892,
Jenney and Mundie), and the ever-famous Monadnock Building (1893, Burnham and
Root). In those buildings, aluminum was used for interior elements: stairs,
railings, and elevator metalwork.

Anodic coatings (with and without dyes) for aluminum, so says the Bible, were
first developed in the 1920s. Anodizing was used mainly for electrical
appliations, however, and did not become available for architectural purposes
until after WWII (so, david, your 1938 department store with anodized
aluminum windows (if they're original) is pretty interesting).

And then these last tidbits: There apparently was a drop in consumption of
aluminum in the late 30s, followed by a a marked increase in consumption in
1939 that continued through WWII. Wartime research for the aircraft industry
expanded knowledge of alum. alloys as well as improved production methods.
After the war ended, unprecedented amounts of the material was available for
construction, and by 1952, aluminum production had surpassed wartime levels.

Thanks, david, for piqueing my interest enough to look this up!  There's tons
of more stuff on it (a whole chapter) -- its history and conservation --
which you might find interesting. Some things that Mike Edison might be able
to decipher better than I can. I would still like to know more about your
store, though.

Mary